Time Things
by Night Kitten
Summary: *STILL UPDATING* History isn't just the Middle Ages-2001, Otto. So, let's see how our space-aged friends cope with more recent history! This is mostly for fun, I don't know if I'll do any pairings, but keep your eyes open just in case.
1. Bedtime thoughts

**This is for my sister, who has not only been a great help with my other stories, but also told me to do a Time Squad story because (and these are her words, not mine), 'THERE IS _NOTHING_ FOR IT ON FANFIC.' So, my dear sister, this is for you!  
**

**I don't own these characters. I wish I did, but I don't. Now, I'm going to go curse the Fates. Good day.  
**

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The ventilation system _'shhhhhhh'_ed, pouring fresh air from the garden pod into the rest of the satellite. The sound used to keep Otto awake, since he had grown used to the occasional squeaks of rats in his time at the orphanage. Now, however, it was only the white-noise of everyday, and the background music for his adventures. Larry had similar noises when he got over heated, after missions in the tropics of South America or in Egypt. But Larry also complained about the noise, saying it was 'undignified' for a robot of his caliber. However out of date his systems might have been, Larry kept his original programming and desires for nobility.

Otto thought on this for a moment, standing outside of his shared bedroom doorway, glass of milk in hand. Larry had been the one who wasn't sure if he should've come with them. Sure, they'd warmed up to each other, but originally he'd been more a pet than a son. That was what he was now, right? A son? Sure, he'd been a son before, but this time he knew the parents. Or, parent. Larry was really the one who looked after him the most, Tuddrussel did too, kinda. In a bone-crushing, big brother/father kinda way.

But he was looked after now, and that was what was important. Larry was his robotic-overly-fussy mother, and Tuddrussel was his Texan father. That was all that really mattered.

They were a family and nothing would change that. Nothing.

Otto concluded this thought with a triumphant sip of warm soy-milk, and stepped into his dark room. Tuddrussel greeted him with a growly snore from the darkness. The child smiled, put the milk by his bed and crawled under the covers. In the orphanage there'd be other kids in the bed, and he'd get pushed out. Or they'd all have to move closer to the radiator for warmth.

This was better, warm bed, family, milk that didn't hurt cows… This was good. And nothing would change it. Yet.

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**OOOH! Short things are short! Just like hot things are hot and round things are round*. So, this tells you absolutely nothing about this story! Haha! Okay, so I'll be working on this, Epilogue, WMAH(?), and school for a little while. So updates might be few and far between. But oh well, who needs sleep anyway! Any advice or commentary is much appreshated! **

***'Round things are round' is another lesson I learned from my sister. I hope this makes you happy, and I promise this isn't your Chirstmas present (I'm not _that_ broke).**

**Happy Holidays ya'll! Be good to your fellows and enjoy the cold while it's here! It'll be nice to remember when your brains fry in the summer!  
**


	2. Chapter End Beginning

**I have finally gotten my braces taken off *dance dance* so I will bless you all with this chapter. I don't know how many other people have tried it, but it's really hard to get into a robot's head to write for them... Damn mechanics...**

**Don't own these characters.**

**Also, worked out the typos.  
**

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Tutakhamon didn't follow his predecessor's monotheistic beliefs anymore, Sting was a musician instead of a spelunker, Jesus of Nazareth wasn't trying to become a fishmonger, Marconi wasn't an splatter painter, and the Time Cops were exhausted.

Larry leaned his metallic back against the wall, steam being vented out of his sides, his 'eyes' fading and his central processor beeping.

"Larry, you okay?" Otto piped up, worried for the robot.

"Wha— oh yes, yes, fine. I just need to recharge my batteries, I'll be fine, Otto." The robot straightened up, and dragged himself to the nearest outlet. It was in the kitchen, down the hall. As he lugged his metal frame across the published tiles, his beeping increased in speed.

"Yes, yes, I know," he said to himself, knocked a small fist against his chest plate to try and stop the noise. He wanted to hear music, good music, not Tuddrussel's occasional off key singing. Duke Ellington, Beethoven, Malischewski, Bill Withers, Lionel Hampton, Mozart, Rotha the Mighty, Xeral, something soothing...

The kitchen door glided open, and Larry all but collapsed into the room. Pulling himself towards the nearest outlet, he pulled an extension cord out of his wrist, and plugged it into the wall. The beeping was silenced.

"Hey, Lar!" The robot played the moan-track (number 37-9.2) from his audio files. "Get me a roast beef sandwich while you're in there!" Aqua turned red for a moment as the robot considered throwing something towards the voice. But Tuddrussel was on the other side of the door, and any dent Larry caused would only be another thing for him to clean up.

Ignoring the Texan, Larry looked at his wrist and poked at the illuminated screen. Audio-Music-Jazz-D-Duke Ellington-Most Requested-Sentimental Mood-Play.

The kitchen was filled with the sounds of a piano, trumpet, and bass in a second. Larry vented the last of the air out of his system, then leaned against the counter top, legs bent, ankles crossed, elbows on the polished faux-marble. He'd cleaned the kitchen the day before; it still looked decent. A good sign.

The tempo slowed down for a moment, and over the jazz Larry heard the patter of small feet.

The door to his right, the one he'd entered through, glided open, and Otto came trotting in. His legs were too short for him to get around any other way. In the child's little hands was a glass that had a small white rim on the inside of it. Circuits fired off inside his head, his version of a synamps firing off. Larry's mouth-piece moved up-side-down, his 'Happiness. Emotion' file being opened by the sight. The robot, never forgetting the job at hand, focused his eyes on the residue, turning the music down slightly. Milk, perhaps a night of so old, calcium still clinging to the glass like water does to buildings in a flood.

"Sorry ta bother you, Larry," the robot focused his eyes on Otto. A scan (a literal one) of the human's face showed sections of heat on his brow, cheeks, and mouth. Signs of exhaustion. "But I forgot ta bring this glass in this morning."

He came up to Larry, his tennis shoes squeaking against the floor, contrasting the jazz. The robot took the glass as Otto held it out to him, and turned the music down more, so only he could hear it in detail.

"That's quiet all right Otto," He turned and ran the sink, swirling the water around the glass until the milky rim disappeared. "There's no need to apologize," Although, it was high appreciated.

"Excuse me! Ro-bot! Ah asked you for a sandwich!" Tuddrussel came lumbering in as Otto hoisted himself into a chair. The man had similar pockets of heat on his face, but it was more of the forehead and cranium, too much thinking probably.

"Otto," Larry said, trying again to ignore his co-worker, "Would you like anything to eat?"

"Uh…" the little human looked around, from Tuddrussel to Larry, as if choosing which one to side with. His stomach won out. "Could you please make me a PB'n J, please?"

"Of course," Larry reached for the bread, undid the twist-tie and coaxed out a pair of soft slices.

"Uh, par-don me, but, Ah asked you for some-thin five minutes a-go. Now, Ah would like a God-danged roast beef sandwich!" Tuddrussel approached Larry, not stomping, but close to it. His big arms and hands were held at his sides as if this were some kind of showdown.

"Yes, I heard you. Now go sit down, I'll get to you in a minute." Larry opened his 'Irate. Audio' file and heightened his volume as he said this. Anger was the only emotion that he could imitate that registered with Tuddrussel. That and the word 'yes'.

The cop grumbled under his breath but sat down next to Otto. The two began to talk about the mission, and out of the corner of his 'eyes', Larry noted that there was paint on the side of Tuddrussel's mask and spandex hood. He'd have to look after that later.

Grape jam, peanut butter, a few small slices of apple, and a song later, Larry scanned the fridge for roast beef. Two or three small slices, it would have to do. Ninety seconds in the microwave, on low heat. Just long enough for it to get piping hot before it was shoveled into the human's gaping maw.

Larry presented the steaming sandwich to his co-worker who accepted it with a grunt.

"Well, you could at least say 'thank you Larry, for making me a hot meal!'" More from the 'Irate. Audio' file, high volume.

"Well, Ah would, 'cept you never thanked me for gettin' that python offa your fat head!" At this Larry's memory banks reacted involuntarily and he was a captive audience to the brief film of the memory file. The snake lunged at him, as he stood on the desert-scape with the Great Pyramids of Giza behind him. Trying meekly to fend off the retile, he had put his hands up, only to have them crushed against his mouthpiece as the serpent wrapped its self around his head. His mind had registered Tuddrussel laughing, but the snake was soon forced to loosen its hold.

The memory of this moment's disgrace made his mental circuits overheat, causing his mouthpiece to glow a hot iron red. Blushing.

"Oh, so you can stand there a laugh, and I have to thank you?!" The two began bickering, one in high volume, and the other around chunks of sandwich.

Otto, having devoured his lunch the moment it was set before, hopped down from the table and carried his plate over to the sink. He remembered when he'd been the one who was stuck with dishes back in the orphanage. It had been one of the easier jobs he was assigned, in fact one of his favorite. It had been relaxing, hard on the fingers because the hot-water-heater was always broken, but it was mindless work.

The child contemplated this as he stepped out of the room, making a mental note to thank Larry when the fighting was over. Dish washing…It was mindless, easy work. Was that why Larry seemed to like it so much? He did seem to like it, so that might be it. He'd been a diplomat before, had he been fussy like this when he'd been doing peace-talks and negotiations? Probably, Columbus had been a magnetic guy, but good diplomacy took the eyes of a perfectionist. Someone who read the fine-print, no matter what language it was in.

Otto wandered into the control room. The computers screens glowed silver-green-blue, but had nothing that wasn't binary. He stood here in the artificial light and waited. He'd had four missions that day already; he felt it in his gut that the alarm would go off.

Otto closed his big eyes and waited. Nothing. He opened his eyes and watched the red bulb for any glow. Nothing.

"Lawrence! When Ah get my hands on you!" The tread of heavy feet brought Otto out of his thoughts, and the clang of metal against metal made him look at the door.

Larry came in first, leaping into the room just as the doors swished open. The robot lunged for the shiny little keypad beside the door. The doors sliced through the air and connected just as Tuddrussel's visage became clear in the other room.

The robot looked at his wrist, from which came an extension cord that had been trailing along the floor. His retracted the cord, before plugging it into a small outlet Otto hadn't seen before.

"Uh…" He remembered the sandwich, "Thanks for lunch, Larry." The robot looked up, his eyes flashing for a moment as he took in the human with a quick scan.

"Oh, it was nothing Otto," Larry said, absently, his eyes returning to his wrist-screen. Halfway charged. Thirty more minutes and he'd be at full power again. A night's charging and he'd be charged for two days. Two regular days, not crazy ones like this.

"Open this door, Robot!" Tuddrussel started to pound on the other side of the door, the sound echoing through the control room. "Open the door!"

Larry, more circuits firing off in his head and a cloud of steam emitting from his sides, felt the slight desire to roll his eyes. Programming that was a fine mesh of the recreated human emotions of an android and the cold logic of earlier prototypes had granted him these desires, immobile eyes denied him the actions. He contented himself with a sigh from his 'Annoyed. Audio' file, number 37-9 would do.

Otto watched the robot as he kept a hand on the 'close' button and sighed to himself. He didn't know how a robot was supposed to sigh, because they didn't breathe, but Larry sighed a lot. In fact, he sighed more than anyone Otto had known, even more the Poe had after he'd taken up drinking again. And after he'd started using opium again.

It seemed rude to ask how the robot could create human sounds. Perhaps his not being human was a touchy subject, like how Tycho Brahae's nose had been, after it had got cut off.

"Well, I…uh…" More pounding from Tuddrussel made Otto turn to the door on the other side of the room. "I'll let you recharge a little bit." He trotted out, squeaking.

Larry scanned Otto's face as he left the room. He was getting some color back, after having spent a good deal of time in the desert. That was good.

Seeing the door swing shut behind the little human opened Larry's 'Impatience. Emotion' file. He didn't want to be stuck half-charged with Tuddrussel after him. The oaf hadn't check the food supplies, so why should Larry mind if the sandwich was the exact weight he normally made it?

His memory files opened, and he watched as Tuddrussel began to argue with him over whose turn it had been to call Earth for food. Larry had checked his calendar and schedule; it had been Tuddrussel's turn. But, humans weren't very reliable when it came to schedules, especially not in space.

The pounding on the other side of the door was beginning to slow, and the robot picked up the sound of Tuddrussel's panting. He checked his batteries again, still only half charged.

Larry tapped the control pad beside him, setting the doors to their 'locked' setting. He turned his music off, and gave himself twenty seconds to close his files before shutting down. Music, close, audio, closed, infrared scans down, emotions, closed. He set his battery-charger to automatic, and slumped against the wall. His eyes turned gray and his head bowed. Sleep mood.

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**Can you tell what kind of music I like?! Jazz?! Yes! Anyway, I know the end was kinda rushed, so any comments you have are very much appreciated. **


	3. Mission

**Today is my big sister's birthday, so this is dedicated to her! Happy B-day!  
**

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Sound and light bounced off the walls, turning from the nasal screaming of the alarm to the clanging of metal on metal as if erupted through the satellite. Electric charges shot through the shiny walls and up a long extension corded, waking Larry. Silvery bed sheets flew up as Otto leapt from the warmth of his bed and began dressing in his usual blue. Tuddrussel hit the ground behind Otto with such precision that the child didn't realized he had fallen out of bed.

Within five minutes of the alarms' first wail, all three were in the control room. The red light flashes over the screens and the noise kept up, deafening and blinding both humans in their sleepiness. Larry calculated the binary on the screen, and entered the access code it asked for. As he sent the code into the main computer, there was a pause in the noise. Then it stopped all together, and the light ceased its shining. More binary flashed across the screen, and Larry typed sent in another code to the main computer.

There was a pause as the computer gathered its data and set up the display.

Larry's vision circuits must have been malfunctioning.

The screen read;

'KNULL SPACE: 5,789,035th parsec, Western Spiral Arm of Milky Way

EARTH DATE: SEPTEMBER 27, 5,789,035 A.D.

KNULL DATE: JA-HA 67, 7,89,0078 K.L.

KNULL-PA STATION AT COORDINATES 345 LAT. BY 176 LON.

KEY PERSONS: ROBOT LAWRENCE 3000 MODEL NO. 27R9980-70, KNULL AMBASSADOR TO U.P. WHA-LA KIN RETU'

Underneath the text were images of Larry's own blueprints and an etching of a hunched creature with the head of an alligator and a long beard.

Larry felt his circuits fire off and his hands twitched.

Otto looked at the screen, but before he could read the text the etching distracted him. It was a strange creature, with three claws where a human would have hands, and beady eyes below a mass of unruly hair. It looked like a long cape or cloth of some kind had been draped around the thing, as if that were to substitute normal clothing.

Otto found himself tracing the edges of the picture with his finger, although he did not point it at the screen. He wondered for a moment if he had done this with a picture book when he had been with his biological parents.

It was Tuddrussel was the first to speak.

"Lawrence, what in the heck did you do?" Every word pierced into Larry, and for a moment he swore he felt pain. But with no nerves under his casing, he couldn't know what he felt.

Now Otto read the screen's text. His mind stopped and he reread it. And then again.

"Wha—Larr-y?" the little human couldn't help squeaking as he spoke.

The robot sat there for a minute, not answering questions because he had temporarily shut down.

He slumped in his chair, then blotted up and read the screen.

"Larry, what'cho do?!" Tuddrussel asked again.

"Nothing! Just what I was supposed to do! I negotiated peace between the Knull people and the United Planets!" Larry finished this thought, then began to calculate just whose fault this was. He came to a logical conclusion in a moment. "I know what it is, it's the Time Guards."

"Time Guards?" Otto had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Yes Otto, remember when I told you how it is that we have to right history?"

"Yeah, you send it was like a rope coming up done," Otto put his little hands up to mimic the hologram Larry had showed him.

"Well, Time Guards are things that keep more recent history from unraveling."

"How do they do that?"

Larry paused for a moment, sifting through all the technological data on how they worked and trying to find a simple explanation.

"They remind people." Tuddrussel scratched the back of his head, this conversation was making him anxious. The whole thing had made the nerves around the tiny chip of hardware under his scalp sense the small electric pluses that reminded his brain. The pluses had him itch.

"Well, let's get this over with." He took Otto by the shoulder, and looked at Larry as if to say, 'Let's not talk about _that_.' The bigger human lead the boy to the teleportation pads, while Larry sent in an affirmation code to the computer.  
Pulling himself up, Larry noticed a squeak coming from the metal joints in his knees. He tried to ignore this, and followed the humans. Standing in a row, all three readied for the awkward hot-cold feeling of time-traveling. In a flash of electricity, energy, light and sound, they were gone.

None of them noticed the small image of a redheaded boy at the very bottom of the screen.

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**Dun dun dun!**


	4. A Pig Named Oink

** My absence has been inexcusable, so I'll cut to the chase. Here's the latest chapter, I hope you all enjoy.**

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There were three things that surprised Larry, two he was just receiving surprised emotions from, the third he found himself opening both happy and concerned files over.

The first two:

He was in space.

He recognized where, in space, he was.

The last one:

Otto was curled around his footcuff, pale and making noises that meant he was scared and/or worried according to Larry's data on the relations between human audio-activity and emotion.

Larry, conflicted on whether he should give in to his want to enjoy the data that said he was needed for a job other than talking to an out-of-date computer or be worried about what was bothering Otto, froze up.

Tuddrussel, thankfully, focused on his pint-sized compadre, and pried Otto from Larry's leg. The kid was shaking and Tuddrussel could sympathize with his fear, though it had been some time since he himself had felt it as badly as Otto was feeling it now.

"Larry, we gotta get him to the infirmary."

The robot's head swiveled, the ball holding it twisting awkwardly in its socket, making the front of his head lean forward. His eye lights flicked off, then on again. He rubbed his overheating forehead, closing his emotion files for the first time in ages. Time for work.

Larry pulled up maps of the space station the stood in, opened files on current doctors, staff, the janitorial schedules, lunch menus, lists of supplies that were aboard and had been sent away for. There were one and a half thousand and five living beings, not counting single-celled bacteriums, aboard the station. There were provisions enough for the next three earth years, should they lose contact with outside life. The life-support systems working at that moment were the primary system, there were three others, along with three other generators. Everything was up to code.

"Lawrence!"

Larry jumped, /Shock opening. He recognize Tuddrussel's voice and snapped back into working order.

"What?"

"Infirmary, for God's sake! We need to get Otto to the infirmary!"

Larry looked at his partner, scanned Otto as he hung from Tuddrussel's hand. His vitals were irregular, heart attack symptoms, nothing Larry understood well enough to fix.

He was never programmed to work with medical authorities and wasn't compatible with updated medicbot software.

"This way!"

His Hart-Chip, the small piece of machinery that linking his emotion files to his main processor, took over control of his usually logical circuits. This extreme new feeling would have made him feel human if he had still been robot enough to look at himself logically. However, as he legged it down the glass walled hallways of the space station, he was too human to think like a robot.

Tuddrussel had had a pet pig, who was simply named Oink. Oink had stayed out in the rain when he was still very young. Tuddrussel, coming home from the nearby river, had grabbed the animal and run into the house, wrapped him in a blanket and feed him warm sow's milk for a week before Oink had been restored to health.

Running down the hall, holding onto Otto, he felt his hear beat against his chest the way it had when Oink had been shivering in the rain.

As he kicked in the door of the infirmary, he felt sick for comparing his little buddy to a pet pig.

The medicbots looked up from their stations, stiff and hard and scanning the intruders as the big one ran toward the doctor on call, while a robot sent out a signal saying they were harmless.

The medicbots conferred on the idea that a giant who could kick in a solid metal door being harmless was oxymoronic, while that self-same giant held Otto out to the doctor.

The doctor, an unassuming and timid semi-human with poor eyesight and purplish skin, squinted at Otto, ordered one of the medicbots over, and linked the boy to the robot's screen.

"He's had a heart attack." The doctor smiled, happy to be over service.

"Well-well, fix him!" Tuddrussel didn't know what else to say. He couldn't fix this was blankets and milk. He hated that fact.

The doctor toddled over to a row of drawers on the far wall of the infirmary, pulled out a small box and a facemask that could be hooked up to one of the air tanks lining the wall.

The medicbot took Otto over to one of the bed along the wall, Tuddrussel and Larry rushing up behind the robot and making it glide awkwardly past them as it returned to its work elsewhere. The purplish doctor come up beside Otto, held the facemask over his nose and mouth, linked it into the tank beside the bed, and held the small box over the kid's laboring heart.

A screen over the bed lit up and mapped out Otto's vital. An electric blue light spiked up and down to show his mental activity, a hot red line showing the flip-flopping of his heart.

The doctor held the box over Otto, making it emit a high pitched 'Eeeeeee' noise that gave Tuddrussel a head to beat the band. The sound dissipated, however, as Otto's body calmed down, his heart and head returning to normal patterns. As his impromptu parents looked on, Otto went from green to white to his usual pink. He groaned with his eye still shut, then fell into a deep, placid sleep.

Larry's Hart-Chip released his central processor, and he collapsed on the floor.

Tuddrussel, as the surviving Squad member, told the doctor some lies about his uniform and their purpose then. He flashed documents that were designed to look important and linked to being fired if the reader did something they dictated as wrong. The doctor backed off, deciding that curiosity certainly had killed the cat, and went meekly about rebooting Larry.

Tuddrussel pulled a chair up to Otto bedside and remember the first time he had looked, unprepared, into the starriness of deep space. He's fainted dead away, for the first time in the life.

Man was not meant to move around in space the way he did these days, Tuddrussel figured. And with glitzy stations like this one, with wall treated so they looked like glass, it was no surprise that someone who'd never been _surrounded _by space would have a heart attack.

Larry woke up feeling horrible. He back and side hurt where he had landed, his emotion files had gotten all jumbled up when his Hart took over. His head hurt.

Easing back the emotion files, though not turning them off, Larry himself up. As he did so, saw the meek doctor who had rebooted him. The security camera in his eye circuits had recorded the purply face.

"Thank you, doctor…?"

"Mathews." They shook hands. "Your friend has already told me about your mission, I'll keep out of your hair."

Larry thanked Doctor Mathews again, this time trying to sound official, then looked at Tuddrussel.

The Texan was folded in on him, big shoulders pulled around him, fingers close to the lip as he stared at nothing in particular.

"Tuddrussel?"

The man didn't move.

Larry reached out and gave his shoulder a push, not wanting to call him 'Buck.'

Tuddrussel didn't jump, which surprised Larry. He only looked over at the robot, acknowledging the fact that he was there. The man didn't go back to looking at nothing, but instead stared at Larry with disinterest, the way he might look at a toaster as it did its job.

Larry was offended.

"Don't look at me like that."

Tuddrussel ran his hands down his face, brushing his visor out of the way so he could rub his eyes. He felt the bags under his eyes, the scar on his left cheek where he had fallen on a rock when he was still a kid, the bump where his nose had healed over from where it had been broke the first time, his stuble, his lower lip.

"Not now, Larry." He rubbing his eyes again, blinking hard to clear them. He didn't feel like dealing with the robot's drama.

Larry, having never seen Tuddrussel without his visor, was too surprised to be angry with the cop's very mild irritation. He had brown eyes.

Larry had always figured he'd have blue eyes.

"Sorry." He didn't know he was talking until it happened.

Tuddrussel growled an 'Uh-huh,' pawing his forehead. His head felt like it was in an iron clamp. He leaned his elbow on his knee, feeling the bump on his nose again.

"I actually thought we was gonna lose him."

Larry shook his head, thought Tuddrussel's eyes were closed.

"No, he was always safe, Tuddrussel."

"But-no. He wasn't. What if I hadn't grabbed him? What if he had been bigger than he is? What if you jumped, seein' him like that?"

Larry, having laced his fingers together to keep his hands from shaking, heard the clatter of their continued movement before Tuddrussel. Every question made his brain make up, logically, a most possible outcome. None of them were good.

"What if we'd made a wrong turn or somethin'? What if-"

"Tuddrussel!"

The medicbots looked up from their work, wondering what had bothered the strange robot with the two humans. His voice still banged against the walls as they returned to work.

Tuddrussel looked up from his hand, not respecting Larry enough to be sorry but not disrespecting him enough to act like he hadn't said anything.

"Don't. Don't ask those questions. What happened happened. And that's that." Larry put his shivering hands in his lap. If he could breathe it would have come in gasps.

"You talk like he kicked it."

"You make me feel like he did."

Tuddrussel scratched the side of his face, though it didn't itch.

"Sorry." He offered.

"Thank you. I'm sorry I yelled."

The doctor came back to check on Otto, even though he was doing fine. He explained to the remaining Squad members that Otto would be sedated for a day or so, then he would be just fine.

Larry and Tuddrussel realized that, however reluctant they were to leave the one person who had made their lives together bearable, they had to get to work. Larry printed off a copy of the records of what happened on the station and gave it to Tuddrussel.

"It's just a peace negotiation. One of the last loose ends of the Knull-Earth treaty, it's centered around bandits that Knull believes are Earthling invades. They're actually just a rogue sect of humans but do _not_ tell anyone. They don't learn about that until next year."

"That don't make sense. How can Earth not know what's theirs?"

"The bandits shanghaied a fleet of old but still used spaceships. Wherever they are, they have clearance. So nobody really knows what to look for, because the descriptions of the ships fit with so many other fleets. Earth can't discontinue usage like that." he snapped his fingers.

Tuddrussel nodded.

"So, I go, make sure things is goin' well with this treaty. Then, tomorrow maybe, I come back here to switch places with you and you go keep an eye."

"Uh."

"What?"

"I don't think I can do that."

"Why _not_?"

Larry pointed to his blueprint on the forms he'd given Tuddrussel.

"_I'm_ _here_."

"What's that even mean?"

"It means that I could run into myself. And that _could_ stop time."

"How?"

"I don't really understand it. I think it's basically two things being in the same place at the same time."

"Then… Why hasn't time stopped yet?"

"I haven't met myself."

"But you're here and you're also here. Jesus this is weird."

"Well—I don't know. It's a paradox. There. Now, I don't think I should leave the infirmary, just to be safe."

Tuddrussel wanted to call bullshit on that. He knew that Larry wanted to spend the whole time with Otto, for whatever reason he had. It wasn't like they had anything in common, the way he and Otto did. Tuddrussel could think of a million things he could teach Otto while they were then. Larry probably just wanted to pamper him with his robot wussiness.

The Texan grit his teeth, rubbed his bumped nose, took the papers and went to find the negotiations.

He didn't feel like dealing with Larry.

Larry sat and thought for a long time.

He and Tuddrussel had never talked that much without yelling.

He had never yelled back.

Did it feel good?

No, not really.

Why did Tuddrussel do it so much, then?

They were strange questions, especially for him. They were questions that didn't ask for logical answers. Emotional questions. The worse kind.

Otto didn't so much a budge in his sleep, even as the lights in the infirmary dimmed to simulate night. The infirmary, Larry remembered, was one of the only wards of the station that didn't boast see-through walls. Instead, they were the common shiny metal, constructed in bulbous outward curves to give the residents of the ward a feeling of clean, mechanical safety.

As the lights dimmed themselves, a medicbot came up to Larry and asked him, in binary, to leave the infirmary. It was policy.

Larry looked at his reflected in the one big, glass eye of the medicbot. The things all had weird, angular heads and necks that came out of trashcan bodies.

"You're obsolete." He told the eye.

"Does not compute." The medicbot replied.

Larry told the bot, this time in binary, that he was authorized to stay on the ward as long as he pleases. He flashed a code not unlike Tuddrussel's special documents, and the bot left him alone.

In the darkness his eyes glowed. He pulled himself up, plugged into the wall, and stayed up the rest of the night, thinking.

**

* * *

**

**What do you think? Are they A) Merely tired B) Mildly flirting, or C) Other (please specify)**

**Interesting sidenote: writing for Larry is like writing for a mechanical Abe Sapien. **


	5. All Hell Breaks Loose

******This week has been very empowering for me as a writer. Out of nowhere this story has become both fun and logical again. So, here's another chapter for you all. I can't promise that this rapid updating will continue, but trust that there will be updates at least frequently. **

* * *

Tuddrussel had never thought Larry had once been shiny.

But there the robot was, gleaming in the artificial light, like he had just been polished. He wasn't so grey; rather, he was a weird silver color that made Tuddrussel feel inadequate.

Larry, it seemed, had always had a talent for making the human feel sub-par.

The robot was reading and walking, surrounded by aides who were all saying things about this and that. Tuddrussel followed the group, marching in their wake like he knew where he was going. As he followed, a few of the aides finished what they had to do and left a hole in the wall of people around Larry. Tuddrussel, pulling out a flat piece of metal that was wirelessly linked to a headset he had stowed in his pocket, marched faster. He came up behind Larry and bumped into him, feeling the little microphone snap into the side of the robot's chest case.

"Sorry, there." He hustled off, putting the bud of the headset into his ear and switching both devices on with a remote.

Larry jumped up, feeling a sharp pain in his side. He panicked before he scanned himself, and as he did so he found six tiny holes in two rows in his chest case. The two rows stood an inch apart, uniform as if they came from a small chip of hardware. Before Larry's eyes they aged, the edges of the holes becoming rounded where they were at first crisp.

He tried to calculate what it could be. The first memory check, a full run-through the likes of which he hadn't done before, showed nothing that would have anything to do with this. He checked again, his Hart insisting that he act human and think that there was some margin for error in the first scan. He checked again and found a memory, one he hadn't had in the first check, of finding a small, flat chip in his side. His hand had reached down and detached it, leaving the six uniform holes.

Larry was startled, awkward, and, admittedly, scared. Seeing the chip from the memory file, he diagnosed that it was one half of the intelligence retrieving equipment that Tuddrussel and all other human Time Cops were issued.

Larry sat down by Otto bedside again, nervous. His hands starting clanging against the insides of his wrists and he had to clench them into fists to make them stop.

He sat up the rest of the night, worrying.

Tuddrussel could have wandered off into some other part of the station, but he opted to stay close to his target. The first chance he got, he ducked into a doorway and waited for the robot the pass. Following along again, this time from a greater distance, he listened to the young Larry's conversations.

"Mr. 3000, the knus won't just listen to the data we give them. They'll continue to defame Earth unless we can bring up solid proof that the ship terrorizing them aren't Earth's."

"No, they are Earth ships," Larry said, his voice strong and confident. Hearing it, Tuddrussel's gut jumped. He almost felt sorry for the robot. "Ambassador Retu has holograms of the ships from news broadcasts on Knull. Every ship has Earth's insignia, and there are several recordings of the attackers returning to the ships."

"Are we even sure they're not fakes?" an aide piped up.

"What reason do the knus have for making fakes?" another aide argued, "They want peace with Earth, they've said so."

"Mr. 3000, you understand Ambassador Retu's demands, correct?"

"I was there when he made them," there was the weird voice again. "He wants the attacks to stop, to be reimbursed for what Knull has lost, and a formal apology from Earth."

"He's not getting those last two," this was a hard, even voice, the kind that reminded Tuddrussel of his father. "We'll see about stopping the attacks, but we're not going to apologize or God-damn _pay_ for something that isn't our fault."

Tuddrussel caught himself smiling. He liked the way this guy thought.

"Admiral, please," Larry again, "we are here to negotiate, not only point out what we did not do."

"3000, I only want you to remember the score."

"I think I am adequate at remembering facts, _Elkhart_. I am _designed_ to do so."

"Mr. 3000," an aide, "we still need to speak to you about tomorrow morning's meeting."

"I know, Fatima, but I need to charge my battery. Give me half an hour, and then I will be ready for the meeting."

There was the sound of a door sliding open, sliding closed, and then radio silence for half an hour.

Tuddrussel, having expected the silence, occupied with himself with finding out who Admiral Elkhart was. He found a small console, a miniature computer that had basic information, maps, rooms, staff lists, menu schedules, logged into it. He typed in 'Elkhart', found his room and a hologram of the office. Tuddrussel, printing a map to the room and shoving it into one of his big pockets with the other papers Larry had given him, thought about how easy it would be for him to disrupt the whole negotiations by messing with the computers. A late alarm here, a misplaced name there, edited documents that said the opposite of what they meant, fake calls from one side to the other to worsen relations.

Scrap the whole system, he thought, and just do it man to knu. They'd make their demands, Earth would tell them these bandits shouldn't have been authorized by any systems…

Tuddrussel scarped the idea, seeing the pinhole.

He went looking for Elkhart, thinking about what the universe must have been like before computers. He'd have to ask Otto about that.

The Time Cop found the admiral using a map and a print out of his hologram. The image must have been from some time ago, because Elkhart's hair was grey at the sides of his head and his eyes were more wrinkled. Otherwise the hologram had been accurate, with a stiff, serious face, medium build, straight nose and black(ish) hair. Looking at him, Tuddrussel was relieved to see he was fully human. Dealing with semi-humans like Doctor Whatshisface made Tuddrussel feel a little weird.

Elkhart was headed into his rooms and Tuddrussel decided not to bother him, but instead went looking for something to eat.

After a good night hours of sitting in the dark, Larry left stiff and sore in all his joints. He tried to stretch the weakness out, but in the end stooped to just asking the medicbot on ward for some oil. The robot obliged him, but told Larry he would need to accompany the robot into the storage room, to locate the correct type of oil.

They were five minutes away from the infirmary when all Hell broke loose.

There was a noise like nothing Larry could even conceive. Tuddrussel would later say it sounding like a pig being gutted alive, mixed with a heifer dying while trying to give birth. The whole station shook, then glowed red as the alarms went off and the emergency lights flashes. Larry swivled in his sockets, his Hart telling him to run back to Otto, but he felt the weird tri-fingered hand of the medicbot stop him when he tried to run back to weird the noise was the worse.

Tuddrussel, and every other officer onboard who was worth his salt, was up and running. But Tuddrussel, being Tuddrussel, was faster, meaner, and bigger than all the other officers. He plowed through the crowds, shouldering, pushing, shoving, punching, kicking his way back to the infirmary. Why the hell, he wondered, were all these guys headed weird he was?

Larry turned on the medicbot, throwing a fist into the mechanical eye and busting it. He tried to run again but the robot had linked into his systems, and pulled his fusses. He collapsed in the hall, dead to the world.

Tuddrussel was, of course, the first to get through the door to the infirmary. He was the only one, therefore, that saw the semi-human doctor boarded an old Earth starship. All around the ward had been demolished, pieces of curved metal hanging precariously from the ceiling. Between the remains of the ward and the starship, there was a glossy blue light. A temporary air bubble, created by the ship, Buck knew.

He charged after the doctor, knowing full well that he was too late. He didn't care, because Otto's bed was missing and that son of a bitch must have…

Must have…

Must…

Jesus, it was hard to breathe in there.

"…olger! Soldier! Wake up, man!"

The backs of his eyeballs hurt. He felt as sick as he had the morning after he broke his nose that first time. He wanted to roll over and die.

If only this guy would get off him.

"Soldier! Wake up, for God's sake!"

"Christ's sakes, will you _fuck_ off?" Tuddrussel was sure he had said the words, but to anyone around they just sounded like angry, sleepy growls.

"We need to stabilize him, get one of the medical units."

There was more talking, but Tuddrussel was too tired to listen to them blabbing about some guy who couldn't hold himself together. He needed some air.

Feeling a weight on his one arm, he tossed the limp from side to side, freeing it. He began to lift himself off the ground, when more weight fell on him. God damn _pushed_ him!

"I said _fuck, the hell, off_!" He opened his eyes and saw the two men who had tried to hold him down being thrown on their backs, and the crowds around him gasp. He was up before he felt how much pain he was in. He was walking before any of them could grab him.

They didn't, because they couldn't, stop him. He was moving through them like a hot knife through butter. He thought he had cleared the noisy, nuisance of the crowd when, out of nowhere, there was this old man with black hair in front of him.

Tuddrussel kept plowing right for the medium built geezer, who stood straight and solid in his way. If this guy thought he wouldn't hurt him the son of a bitch had another thing coming.

Elkhart remembered the mad dog his father had to shoot. The look on this giant's face was a human version of the look on the late canine's mug. He held his hand out, straight out with the palm facing the man.

"Stop, soldier, that's an order." His voice wasn't loud, but it crashed through the silence of the hallway. He kept the sound even, not afraid of being bulldozed by this man because, hell, he'd do the same thing if he was is such a state.

But, as he had gambled would happen, the giant stopped. He was slumped over, breathing as hard as the mad dog had been. The big chest labored for air. Elkhart looked at the man's eyes, unblinking and hard.

Tuddrussel, at first, thought it was his father talking to him. But, realizing that his father wouldn't be born for a few more millennia, he remembered what had happened.

"Jesus. They took Otto."

And he fell, again, into unconsciousness.

* * *

**Holy shit! What could happen next?**


	6. Wherein Our Heroes Learn New Questions

**This is, by far, the most edited chapter of Time Things yet. Whole chunks of it were taken out before it was ready to go up. But now it's here and it's ready for you to read and enjoy. **

* * *

Otto woke to stares. He didn't jump because he didn't mind it too much, and was really, really tired. But something in the back of his head told him to take a good look, and when he did he wanted to jump.

There were twelve men sitting around him, all smiling like he was a sack of gold or something. Three of them were brunettes of varying shades, two had breads and mustaches. Four were blonds, one had blue green, another green, and two had, and this was freaky, red eyes. Two others were bald, one looking dark and sunburned, the other paler and serious. The last three were green, blue and a pale purply color.

They were all scruffy, if not dirty, and they all grabbed a hold of him when he picked his head up. He yelled before he realized that they weren't dragging him off somewhere. They were hugging him.

Elkhart didn't know what to do with the giant and the deactivated robot. He had both sent to the makeshift infirmary and placed under heavy guard. Reports on the incident had flooded out of the station, one from every representative onboard and, Elkhart could tell you, there were a damned lot of them.

No one really saw what happened, except the giant in the infirmary. Officers had searched him for identification and found that he was one 'Buckley James Tuddrussel,' of an organization called 'Time Corps.' Aides of the admiral ran numerous searches to find out who and what he was. Nothing came up. No official documentation whatsoever. No photos matching the face or any other characteristic on any records. No DNA samples. Not even so much as a recorded conversation involving the name.

Buckley James Tuddrussel didn't exist.

And the anonymous robot would remain anonymous until he could be reactivated. Getting into him was impossible. He was blotted over at every access point, his software, the parts they had been able to get into, was strange and encoded the way none the technicians and linguists and mechanics had never seen.

Elkhart was not a man who liked to be uncertain. When he wasn't sure he asked someone who would know. When they didn't know he'd ask someone else. He had been a pain to his teachers that way, asking the questions they didn't know the answers to and loosening their strangle hold on the class.

But now, with no one who would know, and all eyes on the Earthling admiral, the top brass, master and commander, Elkhart had to act or let the whole station fall into chaos.

And, by God, he couldn't let that happen.

For three days he visited the little infirmary, which consisted of a few beds and medicbots set up in a glorified storage room, to see how the invalids were doing. The robot was hooked up to a board that recharged him while technicians worked on the circuits that had given way inside him. Tuddrussel the Giant was laid out on a bed, strapped down this time, and heavily sedated. Doctors were easing him off of the sedatives to bring him back faster, but not too fast or else he could be as violent as he was before.

No one knew how Elkhart had stopped him that first time, but everyone asked. Elkhart brushed the questions off by saying 'old Earthling trick,' or, 'commanding officer's voice,' or, 'I got lucky.'

Meanwhile, he tried to keep everything working as if nothing had changed. Larry 3000 was at least helpful, wanting to continue the peace talks regardless of the rest of the station's troubles, and the knus obliged. Things on that front moved along normal as ever; slow and painful. In a week there was no progress besides the fact that they were all more or less on first name basis.

At the end of the first week Tuddrussel came to and Elkhart was the first to speak with him.

He was propped up in bed, looking gruff and mean and uncomfortable. That last part, Elkhart thought, was probably the straps.

Elkhart sat in the chair beside him, giving him the same solid look that had stopped the giant before. He checked himself the way he always did before he did something authoritative.

Was he scared?

There was a long paused before the answer came back to him.

… No.

"Do you speak English?"

"It don't sound like God damned French, does it?" The man had a thick southern accent. A fellow Earthling, that was a nice change.

Elkhart kept himself from softening up just because this man had the same homeworld as him.

"What's you name."

"Buck Tuddrussel, can I get these damned things undone? I can't feel my own God damned feet!"

"Answer my questions first, Tuddrussel."

The giant snorted.

"What are you doing here?"

He was silent for a while, looking at Elkhart with red-rimmed eyes.

"I'm here to make sure these peace talks go smoothly."

And he refused to say anything more on the subject.

Elkhart asked a few more questions about Tuddrussel before coming to the subject of the robot.

When Tuddrussel saw Larry strung up the way he was, his whole body no more than the sum of his parts, he wasn't happy. In fact, he was mad enough to jump out of his bed and head over to the robot, knock the technician out of the way, and jab at the reboot button at the base of Larry's neck pipe.

Or, at least, he thought he could've done all that. He _was_ damned angry, but he honestly couldn't feel his feet. Or hands. Larry would have to wait.

Elkhart asked him what model Larry was, what his primary function was, why he had shut down.

Tuddrussel explained as best he could; Larry was a Lawrence 3000, but (he lied) one of the prototypes, that was why he looked so old. His primary function was to serve diplomats, and Tuddrussel had no idea why he had shut down.

"Tuddrussel," Elkhart started, pulling a recorder out of his pocket and starting it. "I want you to tell me everything that you saw in the infirmary."

And out it poured. Elkhart was astounded, everything from a stolen child to double agents within the station. As Tuddrussel talked about seeing the rogue ship, Elkhart fought a smile. This was just the kind of thing they needed to clear Earth's name with Knull.

Otto was taken to meet three officers; the captain of whatever ship he was on, the ship's head doctor, and a man everyone called' Joo-Joo.'

All three were in the captain's study, which was as scruffy and held-together-by-rubber bands-and-paperclips as the rest of the ship. But, it was more full of stuff, even if Otto didn't want to touch half of it. They were all sitting on either boxes or hard looking chairs. Otto was thrown off by this, because there was a perfectly good looking armchair in the middle of the room.

When they saw him, two of them rushed to greet him, while the last stood by the armchair and smiled. The first two, a man with long black and silvery hair and a beard and another small purplish man, were really nice. They yelled happy hello's, shook his hands, picked him up, and plopped him down into the armchair.

The third was much, much older than the others. He was tall and greenish, with white hair that fell from his head in root-like locks. His eyes were small and deep set, his face baggy with wrinkles. He had to kneel to see Otto, even as he sat in the tall chair, and as he did so Otto saw for the first time the weirdness of his milky. The old face was patterned with blue dots, too, uniform as the leavings of machine guns from Prohibition. A long white bread hung from his chin, bushy at first but then turning into just a few scant hairs the longer it grew.

Otto took as guess and thought; this must be Joo-Joo.

He sat and looked at all three for a long moment, before he realized that they were waiting for him to do something.

He scratched his nose and coughed. The younger two were grinning from ear to ear, the old man just smiling in a tired but excited way.

Otto cleared his throat.

"Uh, who are you guys?"

And they were off!

The first two commenced to tell Otto their life stories, at the same time. The third was silent for a few moments, seeing where his comrades were going and if Otto could handle them, finally spoke.

"He means, what are your names, boys."

The other two stopped at the sound of the old man's voice, and looked at Otto, then each other.

"Yeah, uh, that's what I meant."

Otto felt more awkward now, in the silence, than he had when they had been all over him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the old man standing over him, a greenish white silhouette. He shifted so he lost sight of him.

"Well," the black haired man rubbed the back of his head with one big hand. Upon closer inspection he looked like a darker, thinner Tuddrussel. He wasn't nearly as big, but he shared the Texan's expansiveness nonetheless. He looked at Otto with dark grey eyes and smiled. "I'm Jamal Ghazali-Johnson, I'm the captain of the fleet."

Otto smiled, enjoying how familiar this man was.

"Hi, I'm Otto Osworth."

Something deep in the captain lit up when Otto spoke, and he smiled the biggest smile Otto had ever seen.

The little purple man was more timid than Captain Ghazali-Johnson.

"I'm, uh. I'm N-Norm f-f-f-Fielding. Ship s-s-surgeon."

"Hi, like I said, I'm Otto."

The little doctor smiled and nodded his bald head.

That done, all attention turned to the old man, who held a hand out to Otto.

"Most men call me 'Joo-Joo.' I am the one who found the Prophecy of your coming."

Otto looked at the old man, deeply confused.

"What prophecy?"

* * *

**What do YOU think the Prophecy will be?**


	7. Cowboy Up

**Another chapter, this one involving a nice pirate and a bitchy robot. Enjoy!**_  


* * *

'OF THREE; THE MAN, THE MACHINE, AND THE LOST BOY, IT IS THE LATTER THAT WILL GUIDE MEN INTO THEIR NEW PEACE.'_

To Otto, it sounded like a bunch of baloney.

But that baloney was joined by the other components of a factual lunch when Captain Ghazali-Johnson explained the boy's appearances throughout history and how he had a talent for fixing things. Otto thought about this fact for a bit, before he couldn't take it anymore and had to ask.

"Where are my…" he didn't know what to call them. "My friends?"

Doctor Fielding explained:

Due to the fact that neither Tuddrussel nor Larry were necessary for the prophecy, Captain Ghazal-Johnson and Joo-Joo had chosen to only abduct Otto.

Hearing this, Otto was torn between anger and panic. He did the only thing he could think of. He walked out and didn't look back.

Larry had always tried to keep Otto from the bloodier parts of history. When Georges Danton's last wish was fulfilled, the robot had blocked the boy's view of the revolutionary's head. Larry had fought with Tuddrussel to make Otto stay on the satellite when there was a mission on the French side of World War I.

He didn't understand why he protected the child, being as the boy already knew the grizzly details of the missions. But his Hart told him to do it, and not even the sophisticated software of his motherboard could explain the discomfort he felt when he failed to shield Otto from something a kid his age shouldn't have to see.

So, when Tuddrussel told Larry what he had seen in the infirmary, Larry was considering shooting himself out of the airlock with a jetpack to go get Otto from the clutches of these pirates.

When Larry remembered that no Earth ship was stocked with jetpacks, he turned down the influence his Hart was having on his processor.

He had a job to do now. And that job, as humiliating as it seemed now, was to help himself.

Tuddrussel was out of commission until the doctors deemed him stable, more mentally than physically, enough to return to work.

Larry was rather happy to have this opportunity to work solo, though he couldn't slip under the radar of his old… acquaintance; Elkhart.

It was odd, though, because Elkhart was different than Larry's memory had ever characterized him. He was… needy.

The first thing the Admiral did when Larry was rebooted was question him, moving from usual mundane questions about his primary function to more important problems like how he had been shorted out. Larry, having had his security camera eyes online even when the rest of him was gone, was up to date on Tuddrussel's white lies about the robot, and he played along because it was the safest thing to do.

On the subject of his shorting out, Larry could only speculate that the medicbot he had been with was infected with a bug from the pirates and had been reprogrammed to short out other robots when an electrical pulse from the rogue ships came within a certain distance of the bot.

Larry finished rattling off this last part when he looked at Elkhart again.

The human was seated across from him with his recorder device in hand, looking at the robot with the look of a man trying to make himself read through something despite fatigue. Slowly he nodded, looking away and drinking in the robot's theory.

Elkhart ran through its pro's:

Logically sound.

Very plausible given what was known about the technology on the rogue ships.

Simple enough to work.

Con's:

He wasn't sure this prototype L-3000 wasn't reprogrammed by the enemy.

"Thank you," Elkhart said, standing.

Larry was thrown through a loop.

"Ye-you're welcome, Admiral."

As the officer turned to go Larry saw him do something he never remembered him doing when the robot was younger: he yawned, stretched and gave a long sigh.

And so Larry set out on his new mission: Making sure he didn't screw up the peace negotiations.

Mr. 3000, the young and shiny of the two Larry's, had been doing an excellent job with the little he had to go on. Elkhart had yet to release the information he had gleaned from the two mysterious victims of the station's run-in with the pirates, leaving 3000 with little more than lukewarm issues that had been settled already.

Things like the costs of certain fruits, pet policies, little things that gave the impression of Earth-Knull-relations being good they were only really okay at best.

When Larry came into 3000's domain offering help, 3000 wasn't sure if it was Elkhart's idea of a joke or if this old robot was actually going to be useful.

Larry, however, proved to be just as productive as 3000, if not more. What work there was for a robot of his advanced years to do he did well. He was sensible and productive, effective to the point of being restless when there was nothing to be done. In three days of working for 3000, Larry had succeeded in winning over the head wife of the Knull Ambassador, and was working on the other two.

3000, deciding that he was being put the shame, deleted his compatibility software for linking with other L-units.

Larry, remembering suddenly having deleted these files, kept away from 3000.

Tuddrussel stayed in his bed, strapped mostly, and seethed at his enforced laziness.

Otto couldn't find any privacy with the pirates. They were everywhere, naturally, but they were also obsessed with him. He would finally find a good place to get a moment alone, only to have some shaggy sailor come up smiling and introducing themselves or asking for insight about just about anything. Otto would always say the same thing; Sorry, I can't help you.

It was an easy thing to live with them, they provided everything he needed. He had a room, full access to the mess hall, leave to roam any part of the ship he pleased, and the doting admiration of the entire crew.

For the few first days he was able to avoid the three men in charge of the fleet, but on his fourth day with the pirates, he ran into Captain G-J.

They were in a hallway somewhere on the western wing of the flagship, coming from alternate directions. Otto saw Ghazali-Johnson before the latter saw the former. Faced with the decision of whether he should run the other way or just confront the captain now, as he inevitably would have to do, Otto remembered something Tuddrussel has once instructed him to do.

'Cowboy up, Otto.'

The boy repeated this phrase over and over as he approached the captain, moving like a brooding little locomotion down the hall.

Captain G-J, surprised that the kid was being so forward, stopped where he was and watch the boy approach. He wanted to smile, but stopped himself. Even his smile, however infectious it tended to be, wouldn't help this.

It would, he was willing to bet, make things worse.

Otto stopped a few feet from the Captain.

"We need to talk." He squawked in a voice that had been locked up in him for about a day.

G-J made a vague gesture with his head and hands.

"Sure, kid. You wanna, uh, find a place to sit?"

Otto, though miffed by the captain assumption that he needed to be baby, did want to sit down. He nodded, trying to contain his discomfort and pull off a good Clint Eastwood impression at the same time, and turn down the hall.

The two of them eventually found themselves in a less used room of the flagship, a room originally meant to hold a dignitaries but, not, nothing more than a glorified attic with a big window. G-J pulled a big chair out of the piles of discarded stuff for Otto, and a smaller chair for himself.

Otto didn't mind the attention, at the moment, because he was busy trying to understand how the space he looked at out through the window was the same space that was outside the windows of the satellite he called home.

G-J, watching the boy silhouetted against the bright black pincushion void, understood very suddenly why Joo-Joo called him the 'Lost Boy.' He took a few cautious steps up to the kid and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Uh, kid?"

Otto jumped and turned, snorting to try and breathe his composure back into himself as he wiped the tears from his face with first his hand, then his wrist, then the whole of his forearm. He tried to look at G-J angrily, but could no more look intimidating then raise his head.

The captain ushering him into the chair, pulled a seat up in front of the kid, and acted like the father he had never got the chance to be.

When the tears were all dried up, Otto couldn't even force himself to look mad. He still had a bone to pick with G-J, but the captain had pulled out everything that had made others like him; his memorized joke list, his witty (if corny and a little old) sayings, his infectious smile and more than any other thing, his ability to just talk sadness out of people.

Otto, rubbing at his tear tracks with the heel of his hand, thought G-J should have been a therapist.

G-J, rubbing his eyes and trying not to cough, thought for the seventy-fifth time in his life that he should have been a father.

The two had their talk.

Otto tried to explain what Tuddrussel and Larry meant to him. Not understanding it too much himself, he summed it up in the best words he could think of.

"They're—They're my family. I—just. I don't, can't. I can't live without 'em." It came out in much longer a time than he wanted, but when it was out it hung heavily over the two of them, falling over Otto like the heavy winter coat his mother had dreamed of squeezing her bundle of joy into once he was a toddler.

Ghazali-Johnson felt it pull on his beard, push on his eyelids, his fingernails.

He patted Otto's shoulder and talked before he thought about it.

"If we'd known, we would've brought them too, kiddo."

Otto baulked.

"But—but, you know about the time stuff. About-about-about me and time and-and-and _how do you not know about them_?"

G-J didn't know what to do besides shrug.

"Joo-Joo never mentioned anyone else showing up."

"But—in that prophecy thing—it talked about three people."

"Yeah, but that's always in prophecies. It's never one, there's always a three in there." G-J shrugged, thinking out loud, "I think people just like three's."

Otto sat and thought of a minute, remembering Joo-Joo weird milky eyes. His stomach twisted around and he felt his lunch drip down the walls of muscle.

He didn't like this.

* * *

**As much as I hate to say it, this is going to be the last Time Things update for some time. This summer has been great but with the school looming ever closer, I won't have the time to work on something extra. But rest assured, the story will not be dropped and I will try to get more updates out this year, instead of having another drought until next summer. Hope to see you guys sooner than later!**


	8. The Whole Gang

**Just a little chapter to check in, sorry if you've been waiting.**  


* * *

Otto wasn't used to being a king but he did his best.

He elected Captain J-G and Doctor Feilding as his ministers. Joojoo, it seemed, had elected himself as an advisor. Otto tried to not show the old creature his unease with that.

The boy kept out of the workings of the ship as much as he could, though he constantly suggested they change course for the U.P. ships orbiting Knull. Excuses came from all sides about why they shouldn't/couldn't do that.

He listened, but kept trying.

Tuddrussel was given no job. He had full privileges to lay around and do nothing. It was like shore leave, but without the shore.

He absolutely hated it.

After the first day his back was aching from sitting around. He tried to find something to do, but there was nothing for a future-man to do in such a primitive ship. He dug up maps of the system they were in, trying to find a place where the rogue ships who had stolen Otto could be.

Medicbots followed him, as did two guards.

He tried to see Admiral Elkhart but to no succsess. The Admiral was caught up in the negotiations, the Knulls were trying to weasel out of a promise they had made before.

Elkhart was ready strangle the reptiles, but there was no way 3000 could have rationalized that away. He felt his hair growing greyer.

3000 was locked in an unofficial battle with Larry, the older android in his employ. Larry was the one that had suggested that the Knulls refine the terms of their trading policy with Earth, so that Knull would get a better bargain. 3000 had had to threaten Larry with deprogramming to get that out of him. Larry had told him, cryptically, that Knulls deserved to be traded with as much as the other planets in the U. P., he had a speech about them not being savages and that Earth must set an example.

3000 told him he was being idealistic and illogical.

Larry would have gladly deactivated 3000. The young robot had no concept of other people.

Tuddrussel took solace in Larry's company. The robot was constantly complaining about 3000, but that was fine. Tuddrussel was just glad to see he wasn't the only one feeling Otto's absence. At night when Larry was shut down and plugged into the wall, Tuddrussel would wake up (the way he always had, some time around two or three in the morning) and see the silhouette of Larry by the light of his charging signal. It was a lazy bright blue light that blinked in an out, to prove that Larry was on, if not online. To Tuddrussel, in the darkness of his own worry, it looked like Larry was just managing to breathe, his shadow growing and shrinking as the light passed over him.

Larry, on the other hand, tried to focus on work.

He was sifting through files on Knull peace treaties, trying to break the trap 3000 had set for the Knulls. He pulled up files about Knull treatment after the peace was negotiated. He looked at JPEG's of Knull children, thin and dressed in rags, pulled up the violent histories that had made Knull a militant planet. He pressed the Ambassador's wife to speak up, pressed the Ambassador to push for better terms.

He pushed JPEG's of Otto to the back of his processor, and dialed down the /Saddness his Hart pushed into the rest of him.


End file.
